Change is Easy, Sustaining it is Hard

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I learned something new today, apparently January 17th is National Quitters Day. That’s right, 17 whole days represents that average amount of time people hold to their New Year’s Resolution before throwing in the towel (apparently it’s also one of the biggest days of the year for ordering pizza though don’t fact check me on that as I have no idea if it’s actually true).

Why is it that most people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions in less than a month? Because making a change is easy, sustaining it is hard.

Given it’s the beginning of the year I know many of you are not only thinking about the changes you need to make in your own life but also the changes, as leaders, you need to make across your team.

When it comes to sustaining change follow these three steps:

1. Start with identity

2. Set the standard

3. Leverage a cadence of accountability

Start with identity

I’d be willing to bet that January is the best selling month of the year for James Clear and his excellent book Atomic Habits. While the book is written with a focus on changing individual habits, it has valuable lessons which leaders can apply across their team more broadly.

The above quote from Clear is meant to reference individual changes but the same is true for your team. The first step in making a sustainable change is to change the way your team sees themselves.

Tactically, the best way to make this identity change is to start with why the change is important, be consistent in the way you talk about the new identity (and do so all the time), and update your team’s written values to reflect this new identity.

Beginning with why the change is taking place and rooting that why within each individual team members personal motivation is the foundation for shifting their identity.

After you’ve been clear on the Why, move on to ways in which you can consistently, and frequently, reinforce your new identity across your team.

And if you haven’t written down a purpose / value statement as a team do so. If you have, there’s no better time than the beginning of the year to revisit it.

Set the standard

I’ve talked before about the value of leaders setting clear expectations but the more I think about this topic the more I realize expectations is the wrong word. Expectations imply some reliance on an outcome that you likely don’t control where standards are those items within your control which you can focus on executing consistently.

When I say, “set the standard” the new standard should generally be the change you are looking to make.

This could be as simple as raising the bar for the quality of an existing behavior or it could be introducing a new behavior, skill, or action altogether.

In the process of setting this new standard follow my favorite coaching framework:

• Demonstrate

• Practice

• Apply

• Refine

Remember that DPAR exists within a loop of continuous improvement. Whenever you set the standard for your team it’s important to ensure that you yourself are capable of meeting and exceeding that standard. If you aren’t able to demonstrate what great looks like to your team they’ll never be able to effectively make the change you’re looking to make let alone sustain it.

You don’t need to be the best at the new standard, if you’ve hired well your team will hopefully surpass you in individual skill quickly, but you do need a level of competence that is high enough to demonstrate the new standard across your team.

Leverage a cadence of accountability

If the first two items are about making a change this third is about effectively sustaining it. So often leaders, myself included, make a change by setting a new standard and then move on to the next project while their team is still trying to figure out how to be effective in the new environment.

An important rule in making any change is that if you are the change owner it’s likely you’ve spent weeks or months thinking about and obsessing over that change. Tossing it over in your mind, waking up at night thinking about it, getting lost in the daydreams of your own genius because you’re so clever (no I’m not speaking from experience). But it’s important to remember that the day you launch the change is the first day your team is being exposed to it.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a leader is to forget the difference in the amount of time you’ve spent processing the change vs. the fact that your team is still trying to catch up to what you’re saying while balancing the million other personal and professional items on their mind at that moment.

An effective cadence of accountability is some type of consistent meeting, partner check, or standardized reporting template which creates the system by which you will ensure the new standard you’ve set is reinforced consistently.

A simple test is to look at your calendar and the calendars of your team. If you’re making a change which requires setting a new standard it should be significant enough that it is one of if not the most important priorities for your team.

If an outsider were to look at your calendar would it be clear to them that this new change was in fact a priority? Or did you just carryover the same status quo meetings from the prior year with no thought for how this new standard would be consistently reinforced across your team?

If you don’t have a cadence of accountability in place, you’ll never sustain the change you intended to make.

Conclusion

Alright, now that we’re all comfortably going to make and sustain the changes we need in the New Year.

1. Start with identity

2. Set the standard

3. Leverage a cadence of accountability

And if you feel like it, have a slice of 🍕 on the 17th. If you’ve read this far in the post you’re clearly committed to continuous improvement. If that’s the case you don’t need the New Year to get better.